Sunday, 5 June 2016

Butterflies, Butterflies, Frank

The next round of the 2016 DTRA race series is the Greenfield TT, next weekend. TT racing is dirt track's nod to going right and leaving the ground. To the best of my knowledge, TT races only ever have one jump per lap. They're contested by flat track bikes, usually with slightly more compliant suspension and front brakes. There have been TT races in the UK, when the national series was organised by Short Track UK, but this is the first DTRA TT. It's also the first all dirt TT. Previous races have had concrete sections when the course turned onto the infield of King's Lynn speedway track, with a dirt jump.

As a very amateur racer, I'm not a massive fan of the TT format as I've never been much of a jumper, but there was a small scale practice at the Greenfield track earlier in the year, and running a few laps over the jump gave me more confidence for the upcoming race. I think the racing is going to be wild and action-packed, especially as this year, most classes are running without a front brake.

Anthony Brown, big cheese of the DTRA, sent a link to this clip through to get us excited about TT racing and it is wonderful. Evel Knievel is the guest pundit and while he does get some good info over, when asked about TT racing, he compares Ascot TT with the Isle of Man TT. Perhaps he'd only heard of the Isle of Man TT, not actually seen it. I don't have to tell you the two couldn't be more different.

This 100-lapper is dominated by Rick Hocking. He must have been the big favourite, because he was interviewed before the race, with the clips inserted into the coverage. I saw Hocking race at Vegas in 2010, also on a Yamaha 500, like he using in this race, then I was in the hotel hot tub with him (it was a big outdoor hot tub, not that awkward). I wish I'd seen this clip before that impromptu meeting. And it's too late to ask him about it now as, sadly, he took his own life a year later, in early 2011.

Another fact, the late Paul Bostrom (incorrectly captioned Bostrum in this Wide World Of Sports footage) is running third for part of the race. He was the uncle of former superbike racers Ben and and Eric Bostrom. G